1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for a first device to monitor the operation of a second device, including the monitoring of a pump, a fan, compressor, turbine or other rotating or reciprocating piece of machinery; and more particularly related to a disposable, compact, self-contained, battery operated, warning and alarming condition monitoring device for monitoring a pump.
2. Brief Description of Related Art
Temperature and vibration monitoring of rotation equipment is a known and accepted method to determining the health of rotating equipment.                Temperature measurement of equipment as a diagnostic tool is simple and relatively inexpensive to implement. Temperature information is useful only as a go/no go indication of equipment condition.        Vibration monitoring is an accepted proven diagnostic tool for accessing rotating equipment health. Periodic monitoring of machine vibration is a principle component of preventative maintenance programs in industry. The conditions that vibration monitoring can detect are bearing condition, shaft straightness, out of balance condition, out of alignment condition, wear, product buildup, process change, corrosion, and looseness. Vibration monitoring equipment can be expensive, in the tens of thousands of dollars. As such, only very expensive rotating equipment have monitors attached for continuous monitoring. A typical chemical plant has 1000 pumps installed and in operation. There may be less than 10 pumps or pieces of rotation equipment in a typical chemical plant that fit the criterion that would justify the expense of dedicated vibration monitors. For 99% of the rotating equipment that cannot justify the expense of continuous vibration monitoring, either, no vibration measurement is employed or a walk around vibration program is used employing expensive portable vibration equipment and manual labor expense. The periodic monitoring requires trained personnel to collect the vibration in a consistent manner and the timely analysis of the collected data to determine equipment health. Most plants that collect vibration data do not have the staffing to analyze the vibration data in a timely manner and don't catch problems before catastrophic failure occurs. The data gets analyzed as a post mortem event which is too late to prevent failures. The vibration analysis should be used as a predictive tool to give an early warning of impending failure so that maintenance can be performed to minimize equipment and production loss.        
For example, periodic manual monitoring of equipment with portable hand held vibration and/or temperature instruments is known in the art. In particular, manual monitoring of equipment, such as pumps, is typically done, e.g. every 4-6 weeks, based on a plant's maintenance schedule. However, this time period may vary. The shortcoming of manual monitoring is that it only provides a measure of the pump condition for the snap shot in time for which it is taken. The technician must be adequately trained to operate relatively expensive equipment and all units must be checked in order to determine if a problem exists. Pump health can change between walk-arounds due to system upsets and/or operator error. This type of manual system does not provide continuous monitoring and as such does not optimize preventive maintenance.
In view of this, there is a need in the industry for a technique or low cost, easy-to-use device for near continuously monitoring a pump and providing an indication of the condition of operation of the pump based on an evaluation of one or more sensed physical parameters.